I know that I couldn't even though it's been more than 50 years and I claim ignorance as my reason. Yeah at 12, I was pretty naive and stupid !

But I was in a car with a guy who purposely turned around and went back by a black guy working on a street paving job. He drove by real fast and shouted out that word ! Made me really damm mad and I called him an azzhole... never associated with that jerk again. I think I was 16.... for the life of me, I don't know how people can be that way ! Just full of hate and vile.

I've never used the word as it comes from me. I do read a lot of literature, American literature but also some British, in which it appears--and when I read the passages aloud in a class, say, I read the word. And I'm absolutely against the idea that a "modern" edition of something like Huck Finn should censor the word. That's falsifying history, and IMO it's a kind of secular sin to do that. But to speak the word myself--never. I spent a great deal of time in the 60s and 70s and 80s fighting against racism (too young to have been a Freedom Rider, though I know several people who were). I can barely stand it when people of color use the word in an off-hand, "boy am I cool" way. Although I understand perfectly well the reappropriation of the term, I don't think it works any more than the appropriation of "queer" does for the gay community.

Anyway, I know nothing about Paula Deen, but she's a lifelong southerner, and racial relations in the south are difficult for me, up here in the northlands, to understand. My wife and I just saw The Help (finally), and sentimental though the movie is, it suggests the peculiarity of racial relations in the 60s, which I suspect are still as peculiar--and the peculiarity derived from the "peculiar institution," slavery. I also think that in some ways racial relations in the south are more honest than in the north. That doesn't mean that they're good, but honesty is a necessary first step towards curing problems.

So I guess that I'm completely mixed up about Ms. Deen--and am happy to stay that way because I really don't care a whole lot about her in particular. At the same time, being mixed up is what racial relations in the early 21st-century US is all about.

I grew up in a racist family. It was a common usage. We even chanted those phrases like " last one there is a n****r baby. We told racist jokes.

Sad

Interesting thing is that in our basic community we had no interaction with African Americans. I went to a small country school. Thirteen in grades 1-8. Then i went to a town school for grades 8-12. all white. In no time did my schools teach discrimination. By that time we all were becoming less ignorant and gigured out myself the injustice that existed. When I went to college at Pittsburg Kansas in '63 was when I first had interaction and friendship with African Americans.

My dad was racists, but he wouldn't mistreat anyone, and if there were a black family on the side of road I know he would stop to help.

Recently I've heard a couple of my siblings refer to our President in racist terms and I get those hatefull viral emails from a couple of my family. A lot ofthe time I find counter links to throw back at them and the others on their mailing list.

An interesting conundrum, for my favorite brother inlaw was in the last two elections. He is a lifetime democrat but, at the sametime has equal feelings against blacks. I honestly don't know who he voted for. My sister is republican. But they don't talk politics together. Hehehe.

Dave

_________________________
If we don't count our blessings We are just wasting our time

My family was and still is bad. Not my immediate family, but the ones in Chicago. I hate even being around them sometimes, N, spics, wops, etc flying all of the time. This is from well to do people, not Chicago rednecks or anything.

I never heard any racial slurs from my Dad, but my Mom was bad about it until the 70's or so. She didn't have any hatred, just used the word out of habit. We lived in a mixed town growing up and she would do anything for anyone in trouble, it was just that mouth that would curl my ears sometimes.

I don't use the word because I know what it feels like to be the object of discrimination.

______________Having left Alabama to serve in WWII, my dadmet & married my Italian American mother andbrought her back to live and raise a familyin Birmingham.

It was before I came along... but from what Iunderstand, they made her life sheer Hell fromDay One:"I-TALIAN? Why didn't you just marry a 'N-word'?"

I didn't come along until they were living backin good ol', ethnically diverse, New Jersey.

When I fell in love with, and married a Jewish fellow, I got blasted with his family's versionof the same kind of Bullshirt Discrimination.

Lumped with what you guyze don't even recognizeas an issue or problem (easy to do when you'renot the object of the discrimination) of sexualdiscrimination, of a life time of 'Being put inmy place' as a "woman". WTF? So I'm still notconsidered to be a full PERSON In my Own Right?

ref: John Lennon

BTW,Just WTHell was wrong with "NANCY PEL-O-SI"?(DRIPPING with all the derision "THEY" couldpossibly lump onto the 2 Italian female words.)

it wasn't until decades later(just before my old man's death)during a conversation betweenhim and his older sister, shefinally vindicated his decision by confiding to him, "Your four kids turned out to be the bestlooking and smartest of all the kids in our family.".

...umm yeah...

...so... Go Get'em Hilary!

Just like the Obamas did......make those pre-conceived walls come tumbling down!

Lumped with what you guyze don't even recognizeas an issue or problem (easy to do when you'renot the object of the discrimination) of sexualdiscrimination, of a life time of 'Being put inmy place' as a "woman". WTF? So I'm still notconsidered to be a full PERSON In my Own Right?

The whole Deen thing aside, I have a hard time sympathising with African Americans who feel offended when they hear someone use the 'N-word.' Not when I can't turn on the TV or watch a movie, or walk through a mall without hearing an African American who can't construct a complete sentence without using 'mothafugga' and 'nigga' at least three times each.

It's not that I see no problem with the word, I do. But I liken it to the idiot pro-life people who cry and complain about abortion being murder, but then proceed to take part in or support others bombing abortion clinics and killing the doctors/nurses within. Kinda makes it difficult to get behind the cause, if you know what I mean.

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